First we will need to understand that the drastic changes of natural food-offers during each of the four european seasons- and the fact that there are years with bad harvests for one or more of the nutritional items, forces the common european squirrel to rely on- and like a wide range of nutrients. Squirrels are not hibernating; but their sleeping phases are prolonged during the cold and dark months. During extremely cold and wet winter periods they might refrain from leaving their nest's for whole days, in order to economize their energies. It is essential for their survival during the winter that they collect as much as possible nuts and seeds and hide them as food resource. That way they also act as natural gardeners, (similar to many birds who drop seeds during their flight...) because although that they have very strong noses, they can not possibly remember all the hiding places. The so left seeds and nuts can then grow eventually into trees, and provide new food resources. How wonderfully nature arranges to care for all needs! It is the human beings interfering with nature that creates problems and a non-balance!
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Forests, gardens and parks with many native plants and tall old trees that are left to grow naturally, guarded by conscious and wise people who only interfere with a strict necessary minimum of gardening measures- or none at all, provide rich food resources such as
edible seeds
, roots, stems, leaves, the bark of some trees, fruits, nuts, mushrooms, bulbs and the larvae of some beetles.
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When they live in human company, they will often develop a taste for food you'd never have thought to offer them !
I have heard quite a lot of people say ( paradoxically those who lack direct experience and living knowledge about squirrels) that squirrels would also eat birds eggs and even little baby birds: from my own ten years of living together with- and intensely experiencing squirrels, this is nonsense talking! They do not like meat nor eggs apart from the above mentioned exceptional eating of larvae which might be found incidentally within a hazelnut. This, and similar procedures where an insect might be eaten by a squirrel, is called 'hidden nutrition' - because the hazelnut or else was the originally targeted food, not the insect itself. I found that squirrels clearly disliked and repulsed eggs and meat (no matter whether it was cooked or raw..) which I tried to offer them for a test.
But let us consider that the above mentioned idea of squirrels as semi carnivorous, might indirectly be derived from knowing them as extremely curious animals with a natural urge to examine everything new that comes along with an interesting, preferably rounded shape (...who knows; this might perhaps be some delicious new food ). I presume that an unexperienced adolescent squirrel when coming across a birds nest, may want to find out whether these 'nice round little things' in there can be eaten. Again; nature has arranged them to be like this very wisely in order to secure their getting to know the whole range of possible food sources by the means of trial and error procedures - although this can result in the death of a squirrel which is held in human captivity, due to it's trying to eat for instance medicaments or other unsuitable and poisonous items.
Dornach, the 22th of October 2004, Copyrights © Cigal
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